earticle

영어

Middle constructions such as “Sports cars sell quickly,” “The car drives smoothly” are different from those of ergatives even though they are common in that both have one argument on the syntactic surface. And they are not identical with the corresponding passives even if they both have non-agent subjects. This research examines some factors which contribute to the acceptability of such middle constructions.
Rejecting a syntactic approach that middle construction is generated by a syntactic rule “Move-
􎤉” from transitive construction, I argue the middle construction should be dealt with in a
lexical approach related to semantic explanation for universal characterization. The stative
nature of middles can explain the inability to be subjected to lexical processes like “Out
Prefixation” and “Preposition Stranding” that are used for supporting a syntactic approach to
middle construction. Explaining the verbal intransitivity which is derived lexically or syntactically will help understand the different types of intransitive verbs (Jeonju University)